Latest ESO Call for Proposal

The ESO Call for Proposal is issued twice a year towards the end of February (for observations to be carried out between October 1 of the current year and March 31 of the following year) and towards the end of August (for observations to be carried out between April 1 and September 30 of the year following the release of the Call). Each Call usually remains open for about four weeks. You can find the precise date of the latest Call for Proposal at the ESO Phase 1 page.

Proposals must be submitted by the respective deadline (end of March and end of September) using the Web-based p1 interface accessible at www.eso.org/p1. Accessing p1 requires a ESO User Portal account. You can find find more info about the ESO User Portal in this article and at the ESO User Portal page.

Up to 5% of the general observing time may be used for Director's Discretionary Time Proposals (DDT proposals). For detailed information about DDT proposals see the separate DDT Proposal page. As of 1 April, 2019 proposals must be submitted via the same Web-based p1 interface above-mentioned(instructions can be found here).

For sudden astronomical events requiring urgent or even immediate observations, detailed requests can be submitted via the DDT channel. A detailed description of ESO's Target of Opportunity (ToO) policy is given in a separate document. Please read it carefully before submitting any ToO request.